Chicago teachers walk out, schools close

posted at 10:01 am on September 10, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Parents in Chicago had to scramble today as teachers walked out last night after weeks of contract negotiations, launching their first strike in 25 years. Already the nation’s first- or second-best paid teachers among urban school districts, the union rejected an offer from the school board that would have increased their pay by 16% over four years:

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis announced late Sunday night that weekend talks had failed to resolve all the union’s issues. “We have failed to reach an agreement that will prevent a labor strike,” she said. “No CTU members will be inside of our schools Monday.”

After an all-day negotiating session Sunday, school board President David Vitale told reporters the district had changed its proposal 20 times over the course of talks and didn’t have much more to offer.

“This is about as much as we can do,” Vitale said. “There is only so much money in the system.”

The district said it offered teachers a 16 percent pay raise over four years and a host of benefit proposals.

“This is not a small commitment we’re handing out at a time when our fiscal situation is really challenged,” Vitale said.

The strike does not affect charter schools — which is one of the reasons the CTU has taken such a hard line in negotiations. However, the strike might end up backfiring on them:

Leslie Daniels enrolled her son in a Chicago charter school three years ago because she didn’t like the education he was getting in his local neighborhood school.

In the back of her mind, she also knew the school was less likely to be affected by labor problems because its teachers are not members of the Chicago Teachers Union. That’s an added benefit now that the union has called for its first walkout in 25 years. All of the city’s charter schools will remain open Monday.

“I’m glad I made the switch,” said Daniels, 55. “I feel for the other parents because a lot of them are working. What are their children going to be doing?” …

The Chicago Teachers Union has fought the growth of charter schools because the majority of teaching staffs are not members of unions and none belong to CTU. Union leaders argue that charters devalue the profession by paying their teachers less, and that public money is diverted from struggling neighborhood schools to support charters, even when charters don’t perform significantly better.

Charter operators said more parents have been asking about the schools in the last several weeks since union teachers first threatened to strike, and charter supporters are capitalizing.

Something tells me that rejecting an offer for a 16% increase over four years won’t exactly sit well with a public that has seen median household incomes decrease by more than 7% over the last four years on a national basis. The CTU wants Chicago to weaken its teacher evaluation process and clamp down on charter school expansion, which they say threatens their job security. However, as the numbers above show, it’s the parents/taxpayers that want an option outside the CTU stranglehold on education — and the CTU’s own delivery of education that threatens their standing. Going on strike will only reinforce the perception of need on the part of parents to find alternatives to the union fiefdom of regular public education.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel blasted the CTU for its walkout, calling it “a strike of choice”:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the teachers strike is “not necessary” because the two sides were close.

“I believe this is avoidable because this is a strike of choice,” Emanuel said at a hastily called news conference at the Harold Washington Library Sunday night

Emanuel sought to cast the negotiations as hinging on two remaining issues: a new teacher evaluation system and principals’ ability to get rid of teachers. Chicago Teachers Union officials said there are more remaining issues than that, although they conceded the strike is not primarily about money.

The strike on Emanuel’s watch could cut against the narrative the mayor is trying to craft as a leader who’s a problem solver moving the city forward. It also could set the tone for his somewhat fractured relationship with labor, with his first major union contract negotiation ending in a strike.

Emanuel’s aggressive posture in pushing for a longer school day and year, while also cutting the pay raise teachers were supposed to get last year, galvanized the union. With negotiations being watched carefully on a national basis, the soured relationship may have led union leadership to strike as a way to take a stand against Emanuel’s tactics.

Well, maybe. It’s also possible that Chicago parents will appreciate the surprise of a Democrat standing up to a union that has until recently been a key part of the Democratic stranglehold on Chicago and Illinois politics. Don’t underestimate the anger of parents who look at the eye-popping raise rejected by the union for the already-well-paid rank and file, and don’t be surprised if that anger gets directed to the CTU. Meanwhile, the CTU will keep maneuvering themselves out of jobs as those parents who can move their children into charter and private schools begin a massive shift away from CTU control.

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Cut em a little slack. Fat people are like the only demographic left you’re allowed to make fun of.

What a joke of a city; murder rate rampant, kids being gunned down and the teachers decide that…’now, now is our moment where we will stand..and demand an even fatter paycheck!’

They’ll get it of course…I can only hope that when Chicago’s budget craters it goes with a nice splat and lots of emotional news coverage wondering what happened. I’m sure it will be a Republicans fault.

Honest to God, you’d think these people learned their lesson after the WI debacle. But here they are again — demanding more and more from distressed taxpayers. It’s going to take a long time for public-sector unions to recover any sort of respectful image. Who in their right mind would want this mob to “teach” their children?

Look at it on the bright side.
At least the kids are missing out on some leftist & homo propagandizing;
The cops are earning some nice overtime pay;
And the folks who own the businesses where kids hang out will see some increased business

Chicago teachers have the highest average salary of any city at $76,000 a year before benefits. The average family in the city only earns $47,000 a year. Yet the teachers rejected a 16 percent salary increase over four years at a time when most families are not getting any raises or are looking for work.

More and more proof that the Teacher’s Union is a communist organization. Glad I never had any teachers like those idiots. They are a total disgrace to an otherwise honorable profession. $76k per year! God Save America!

I do believe Rush just decoded the Chicago teachers’ strike. After a few days of mayhem our superhero, Barack H Obama will settle the stormy waters and settle the strike. Lots of free press for a guy who know how to ‘compromise’. Question is, how the heck are Chicagoans going to pay for this deal..more than a 16% pay increase!!!

Being the highest paid teachers in the nation is evidently not good enough for them and their so-called leaders. Let them stay on the streets till Christmas, hire subs, start more charter schools. They will give in.

Here is our problem in America in a nutshell. We have Democratic states that are approaching the fiscal cliff and they keep doing the same thing over and over again. How do they expect to avoid the coming debt payment when it hits? They will ask the rest of the nation to bail them out. They won’t ask directly, they will rely on different departments to throw larger sums of money at them, instead of other frugal states. So, people in the Midwest, who have taken fiscal steps, will be on the hook for liberal states like California, New York, etc.
Why do you think Hollywood campaigns so hard for the Democrats? Because they know Democrats will take federal dollars and push it towards liberal states. This money will allow them to continue on their “green, liberal paths” without any concern over who will pay.

The Teacher’s Union wants a shameless, lying crap weasel. They found one in Karen Lewis.

1. “We’ve had 30 years of demonizing teachers.”
Who, Republican or Democrat, has demonized teachers? Criticizing Teachers Unions is not demonizing teachers. She just makes it up.

2. “Arne Duncan didn’t take any science or math, I betcha!”
She has no idea what his coursework was in college so she just makes it up.

3. “He might not have been self-medicating but I wouldn’t count on it.”
She is accusing him of being mentally ill (schizophrenic or bi-polar?) with no evidence whatever. She just makes it up.

4. “You know he went to private school because if he went to public school he’d have had that lisp fixed.”
Now she is attacking the man because of a speech impediment. He has a very small lisp in his “s.” It’s not even as elongated as Barack Obama’s.

This is in less than 2 minutes, but it gives you an idea of how dishonest and grotesque she is. Simply a repulsive human being.

She was speaking at a teaching for social justice conference. Here was the agenda:

•Oregon Public Education in a Time of School Reform
•Coal Exports in the Northwest
•Education & Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation
•Taking Back the Statistics: Mathematics as a Tool for Inquiry
•Cultural Cues for Working with African Americans
•Facing Cancer: Social Justice Curriculum for the Biology Classroom
•Interrupting Oppression in the Classroom
•Supporting Undocumented American Youth in Uncertain Times
•Gender and Sexuality 101
•Unearthing the Voices Silenced by History
•Towards Social Justice Unionism: Transforming Teacher Unions
•Sharing the Power of Practice: Writing About Teaching for Social Justice for Rethinking Schools

1. Hates strikes and would never participate in one
2. Hasn’t seen a raise in three years, not even a “cost of living” raise
3. Pays more for benefits every year
4. Weighs WELL under a hundred pounds fully dressed and wearing boots

American students lag behind the rest of the western world in science and math, thanks Creationists!

libfreeordie on June 2, 2012 at 10:47 AM

Oh, the irony, the ultimate irony….

The liberals have controlled every inner school, every major and middle sized school district for decades, for over 40 years, at least 3-4 generations of students…and look what it has gotten us.

HAHAHAHA!! Worried about “Creationists” while the liberals are creating the worst school system in the world.

Thanks for destroying our school system, for destroying tens of millions of children…it’s all on the liberals shoulders, every single major school district run and controlled by liberals…you have failed them miserable, but you still have your bumper stickers to defend your pathetic policies.

I can’t think of any school district more deserving than Chicago. There are consequences to electing liberals. The only problem is that the idiot liberals who elect the other liberals to screw them blame conservatives when their own choices and decisions screw them.

However – it’s probably more Cloward-Piven at work…
Obama will ride in a week before the election and save the
Chicago schools and the city will start healing itself….

redguy on September 10, 2012 at 10:32 AM

I can easily see that scenario playing out, but much sooner. Maybe only a couple of weeks from now. And afterwards an adoring MSM will be telling us all about Teh One’s “display of leadership”, and “ability to get things done” and “skill to arbitrate disputes” and all that rot.

If this lasts less than a week or two you’ll know the fix was in from the start. It was all a melodrama staged for public consumption.

If this lasts more than a week or two and Obama rides in to the rescue you’ll know the fix was in from the start. It was all a melodrama staged for public consumption and the greater glory of the Obamessiah.

If this last more than two weeks and Obama never rides to the rescue there is a power struggle taking place within the Chicago Machine.

“I’m glad I made the switch,” said Daniels, 55. “I feel for the other parents because a lot of them are working. What are their children going to be doing?”

This exemplifies how so many parents look at the public school system. AS A DAYCARE.
It’s doesn’t matter if you work or not.
YOU as a parent are responsible for you children’s whereabouts.
And for that matter, you are also responsible for:
Feeding you kids.
Making sure they are educated.
Disciplining them.
Making sure they are prepared to go out into the world.
Etc…..
When we have bad winters here in ND & school gets let out early bcs of the weather & the school’s concern in getting children on the buses home safely, you should hear the parents b!@tch & moan.
They are pi$$ed they don’t have daycare for the kid bcs they are working.
I have parents pi$$ing & moaning how there isn’t an afterscrewl program here in our little town that makes the kids do their HW & feeds them supper.
Here in conservative small town America in ND I get parents wanting this.
This attitude that the govt has to care for people’s chirrun is so pervasive even staunch conservatives on all other issues embrace this progressivism of indoctrination.
This kind of stuff is accelerating & it’s making me want to quit the profession.
I’m seriously sick of this garbage.
And the money? Well I think I make a decent living for working 182 days/ year.
If you spend all your time correcting HW outside of screwl, then you’re stupid. Stop assigning so much damned HW. Manage your time better, etc.
Teaching children is only a sacrifice in the sense that we end up sacrificing our principles on occasion bcs we are forced to pass kids through the system when we don’t want to & being forced to raise other people’s kids when the parents won’t do it themselves.
Yeah. It’s why if they made screwl all year long, I definitely wouldn’t be doing this anymore.

So is it obvious yet that we have a parenting and culture problem that cannot be solved by teachers?

oldroy on September 10, 2012 at 11:56 AM

THIS.

I would like to make a larger point, bigger than this strike.
For so long now, the national mantra to improve education has been to throw money at it.

Money can’t solve the problem. I taught in public schools not that long ago, with 50% poor black students.

The problem is in the home and the culture. Having the kids in class for 7 hours a day can’t undo what is happening in these kids’ world during the other 17 hours.

The discipline problems in the classroom severely impacted the quality of education for ALL students, and also make my life miserable. I would call home and hear sheer chaos going on in the background. I had kids hauled out of my classroom in handcuffs for breaking parole. The kids outside of school hours seemed to be in a near-animalistic state with absolutely no focus on education. I blame the parents – and their parents – and President Johnson who destroyed the black family with his kindness by giving them money to have kids.

We have a national crisis in which the black community has descended into chaos, violence, vulgarity, crime and ignorance. The social pressures created by the utter collapse of the black family are impacting every section of this nation.

Were teachers not just burnt out and mentally destroyed by the war zone in many of today’s schools, they may not feel quite the sense of underpayment that they feel. I know that for the brutal working conditions I experienced, I felt like I deserved $100K a year.

Unless we fix the black community, we are destined for spiraling chaos here in America.

Here in my town, the huge influx of illegal immigrants after Hurricane Katrina has put a massive number of low-skilled blacks out of work in the construction and service industries. So now we have a huge sector of our populace with no job, and no hope for a job. What do we do with these people – our fellow citizens?

And I’ll tell you one thing that really got under my skin as a teacher: The bus drivers made $40,000 while I made $27,000. They went home after work and forgot about it all.

cane_loader on September 10, 2012 at 2:35 PM

Poppycock!

You chose your profession that enables you to have the summers
off, working only 8 months a year.

Teacher salaries are posted online. More than likely $27,000.00
is an entry level salary. Teachers are also paid according to
what district they are in, the grade they teach and the teacher’s
level of education.

In normal school districts students causing trouble are sent to
alternative schools. Teachers do not have to put up with unruly students.

I, for one, am sick of teachers and their unions whining. I can
not imagine going to my boss and saying I don’t want to work 7 or
7 1/2 hours per day. Most of us work much more than that. The
retirement packages are bankrupting states. Learn to live with
that reality because if it is not straightened out there will be
NO money to pay retirement benefits. Go with less now or none in
the future.

In normal school districts students causing trouble are sent to
alternative schools. Teachers do not have to put up with unruly students.

THIS is poppycock.

Under Bill Clinton in 1994 they passed a law that said even unruly students have the Constitutional right to be “socialized” with their peers. Students who in the past would have been shunted off to schools for deliquents now are mandated to stay in the classroom so they don’t lose their rights to become socialized (I thought that that was what after-school hours were for).

Unless the Clinton law is repealed, one miscreant has the guaranteed right to destroy the education of all the other students.

Hot Air is my number one stop on the ‘net. And I’m doing all I can to undo any liberal indoctrination our students have experienced.

Many of us are clandestine–if not overt–conservatives. In fact, had the teacher unions never been implemented, we’d be largely Republican. Teachers are by and large family-oriented, conservative-minded people…especially outside urban areas.

Don’t even bother trying to reach people like that; they have their preconceived notions and will stick by them unless they personally experience otherwise. I’ve taught in inner city schools, too, before my current position. I know where you are coming from with the disciplinary problems. I probably will leave this position within a year. With so many people homeschooling these days, I could probably double or triple my income by working as a private tutor to a few clients than by working at my current school.

I was in Chicago over the weekend and caught the evening news last night. From the Tribune reporter to the head of the CTU, the spin was all about how the strike was going to hurt working families and what will they do with their children if the schools aren’t open. Of course, they put the blame on the City not on the teachers union.

Well, can only speak for myself but thanks for the insight. I know a teacher in Iowa who left the system and homeschools her three kids and live on one income. A family member on the husband’s side does the same thing for the most part (they plan on putting them back into the system for their final year the last I heard).

There is no amount of money that could get me in a classroom. When did teachers all of a sudden birth out 40 students and are required to be parents?

Another fine example of what 40 years of liberalism has given us – no structure, no responsibility and a bunch of now adults and current children who think that it’s the government’s problem to babysit their kids. If the Iowa acquaintance (and her family) can live without iCr*p items so can most of the world if it means taking care of your children. I can’t even imagine her reaction if I were to suggest that the government do some or all of her “job”. O_o

So yeah, thanks cane_loader in reminding us what the real problem is and one person (me) appreciates your post(s).

It wouold seem to me that since the education establishmment now receives much of its money from the feds-for general as well as federal ed laws, that these folks are in violation of at least a gazillion federal Arrest them, demand Obama does. It’s for the children!

Amjean on September 10, 2012 at 3:10 PM
You laugh off my personal experience with scorn and derision.

Go ahead. You have no clue. None at all.

cane_loader on September 10, 2012 at 3:32 PM

In normal school districts students causing trouble are sent to
alternative schools. Teachers do not have to put up with unruly students.
THIS is poppycock.

Under Bill Clinton in 1994 they passed a law that said even unruly students have the Constitutional right to be “socialized” with their peers. Students who in the past would have been shunted off to schools for deliquents now are mandated to stay in the classroom so they don’t lose their rights to become socialized (I thought that that was what after-school hours were for).

Unless the Clinton law is repealed, one miscreant has the guaranteed right to destroy the education of all the other students.

I lived it and I know this from hard experience.

cane_loader on September 10, 2012 at 3:34 PM

You must live in Detroit or somewhere similar. My cleaning
lady’s grandson was busted for something or another and then
had to go to an alternative school. The grandmother and the mom
were infuriated because what he did (can’t recall – bringing some
type of contraband to school) was minor compared with what the
other kids in his new school did.

This system of getting rid of the ner do wells also resulted in
higher grade score averages because the troublemakers also ditched
class, didn’t study, failed tests, etc. At the time I recall thinking that this was a contributory reason why the school was top rated in the state.

Of course, this could all be because of where I live. I have
never lived in the inner city of Chicago or anywhere else. At our
school functions, there are never enough seats in the auditorium
for the crowds. Parents are very involved with their children’s
school activities. Chicago teacher’s lax methods would never fly
here.

One of my friends is a retired speech teacher in the Chicago school district. She has hair raising stories to tell.

So, I guess it depends. However, I still say that your experiences
as a teacher do not supercede anyone elses in the private sector.
Everything has their pluses and minuses. Quit griping.

I get so angry when so called comedians refuse to make fun of the biggest goof of a POTUS. Similiarly I get angry at the GOP for not using the left’s own mess-ups against them. This is a union group (ding!), in a Dem controlled city (ding!) which Obama calls home (ding!) with one of the highest crime rates in the country (ding!,ding!,ding!). This should be like shooting fish in a barrel but Romney is so skeered that he will anger the so-called independants that he won’t touch it. Ronald Reagan would be all over this. I miss Ronald Reagan.

On another note, wow these teachers sure do care about their kiddos don’t they? /sarc

Question is, how the heck are Chicagoans going to pay for this deal..more than a 16% pay increase!!!

jadeshasha on September 10, 2012 at 12:30 PM

This is quietly playing out here in Houston. It is about to come to light and it is about two things brought by unions buying politicians:

1) huge salary increases in the past 10 years to public employees, and
2) ridiculously lucrative pensions and health care plans

We voted to limit their revenue and they kept on promising these things. Their bonds haven’t sold. They haven’t been properly funding the plans. Haven’t studied the school districts but the municipal government here is about to really feel some heat.

There out there. Qualified, unemployed or underemployed teachers who have a real gift for teaching and didn’t just take it up to make a buck and get a load of benefits, who wouldn’t put yet another raise and more benefits ahead of the welfare of the children, and who aren’t seeking to make teaching a CLOSED SHOP.

Hire those who have credentials AND a natural gift for teaching and communication knowledge and skills to others.

The parents who care can count their blessings that their kids won’t spend days with what looks like a pack of extremely unpleasant overfed bloated hacks. And those families with some giddy-up might use this time to look around and, while it’s still possible to move around the country without a travel permit, participate in the ongoing exodus out of Chicago.

I was watching the union strikers and they were almost all women. I now know why Romney is not winning against women.

Most of these chubby gals were babysitting in their teens while the lean, good-looking chicks were dating and preparing for an education and marriage to a man. Today, these chubby (obese) gals are still babysitting (not teaching), but demanding much, much more on the hour, along with incredible benefits. Using the trickle-down effect, it won’t be long before today’s teen babysitters will start demanding more on the hour, a benefit package including paid vacations, and why you and your spouse are at the movies or dinner, will walk off the job if she feels disgruntled over the payment arrangement.

Seriously, these people really, really are daycare providers and have no idea how to teach. The highest paid group of daycare providers in the nation while the children are seriously lacking any signs of intelligence.

If you think it’s bad now, wait until we endure the next four years of Obama. The fiscal cliff is nearing, but that jolt won’t be near as bad as the coming riots throughout the urban and suburban areas. We are finished as a country.

As a sidenote, the October surprise is coming that will ensure 4 more years of the Obama misery…Obama, using Executive Privilege, will pardon all pot-related offenders now serving time for possession only and will ask law enforcement to stop any further arrests of possession under a pound. Dealers will still face arrest unless it comes from a medical dispensary. The stoners will think the Messiah has finally arrived.

This “fatty” weights 165 lbs, is 5’8″, and runs between 2 and 4 miles at least three times a week.

DethMetalCookieMonst on September 10, 2012 at 12:13 PM

We all have our own addictions. Mine is sitting on a park bench watching all the joggers get beet red and ready to keel over. Sometimes I get a special treat and one actually faints in front of my bench. Life is good sometimes.